Curious Curator: Secretaire-a-Abbattant

Selecting the first artefact to chat about in this blog entry was a difficult one. I have my favourites of course, but the Parkwood Collection boasts a sumptuous array of so many different items, of different styles and of course made from different materials, it was a challenge.  I have chosen the secretaire-a-abbattant after having a chat with a few of the former Parkwood interns. For educational fun in 2012, we created the Samantha University, which was comprised of a weekly text of terms that as a Curator, I come across with frequency, but often words or phraseology these museum studies grads had never encountered, for example, the term, eustracheon. I would text them a list of words and they would be challenged to define, and locate within the Parkwood Collection these items and then explain them to me, and their significance with regards to the piece in discussion.

The secretaire-a-abbattant is a piece that is often ignored while guests are touring the estate. Located in the Blue Room ( one of the guest rooms), it sits in its location and is rarely referenced. It looks like a cabinet of drawers, of course a lovely cabinet of drawers, in the Louis XV style, comprised of kingwood and rosewood with crossbanding decoration, sitting on shaped pilasters decorated with the ormolu mounts, but alas a cabinet of drawers.

Secretaires do have a practical purpose, and this one, is no different. The piece actual houses a desk, the furniture item being a fall front desk, which opens to contain a series of small drawers for writing implements, stationary and a leather topped writing surface. It's location within the Blue Room is ideal, because etiquette re: making guests comfortable dictates that in a well appointed home, guest rooms be outfitted with a writing surface, so guests may work on correspondence or journals, at their leisure. In 1922, Emily Post comments on the writing desk within the guest room,

"She <the hostess>must also examine the writing desk to be sure that the ink is not a cracked patch of black dust at the bottom of the well, and the pens solid rust and the writing paper textures and sizes at odds with the envelopes. There should be a fresh blotter and a few stamps. Also thoughtful hostesses put a card in some convenient place, giving the post office schedule and saying where the mail bag can be found." Etiquette in Society, Politics and in the Home, 1922

 

Secretaires grew in popularity and in abundance with the emergence of the growing middle classes in Georgian times, and became a must have in households that were showcasing their means, or trying to establish their status among the upper classes. It is often considered a feminine furniture piece, as they would have been purchased for the female(s) in a family, as their writing desk, as opposed to the more masculine desks that come to mind.
In terms of furniture pieces, they are often considered to hold romantic secrets as they were frequently crafted with hidden or secret compartments for the principal user of the desk to hide love letters or mementos of the heart. Knowing this, believe me and my Nancy Drew alter- personality, the one in the Blue Room has been scoured for hidden compartments, etc. and is, disappointedly, absent of hidden secrets!

Over the last several months, I have left the Secretaire-a-Abbattant open for our guests to see the interior of the piece. In order to preserve the piece and it's hinges, the item will be closing again until the next time.